


The Fire Still Burns

by TheRangress



Category: Cosmere - Brandon Sanderson, Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: CFSWF, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7623493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRangress/pseuds/TheRangress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Renarin Kholin was never a Truthwatcher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fire Still Burns

**Author's Note:**

> This story has matching playlists at http://8tracks.com/allriennecett/the-fire-still-burns and https://playmoss.com/en/sterisharms/playlist/the-fire-still-burns

**_holding hands, while the walls come tumbling down_ **

“Seeing the future is not of Honor.”

Kaladin pauses, and takes Renarin’s hand. The sun is beginning to set on their walk. It’s nearly time to go home. “You know that doesn’t mean anything bad about you.”

Renarin pulls back from the touch, and slowly walks away, eyes still on Kaladin. “No. It does.”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Kaladin repeats. He steps after Renarin, hands and arms open. “I don’t care what the ardents say. You do have honor, Ren.”

Renarin chokes, the sound soft. He slowly falls down to sitting, legs folded, and lifts his hands up to his face. “No. I have no honor at all.”

“I know you,” Kaladin says, sitting beside him. “You have just as much honor as your father or brother.”

“No.” Renarin pulls away once again. “No. Please. Don’t say that. You don’t know… I shouldn’t have done it. I wasn’t strong enough…”

“You’re strong enough for anything. I’m sure of that.”

“Stop!” Renarin snarls. His eyes shut quickly and he fiercely pulls his arms over his head. “Just listen. Please. I need to tell you.”

Kaladin stays silent, but he reaches out a hand to brush against Renarin’s. No reaction.

“No,” Syl says, hovering by Kaladin. “No, don’t listen, Kaladin. Run.”

“You’re Honor’s Champion,” says Renarin, his voice a bare harsh whisper. “None of them have told you— maybe she doesn’t know. I’ve known. I’ve always known.”

“No,” hisses Syl. “He’s lying.”

“I don’t know if that means you’re a hero or just a slave again.” Renarin looks up. Kaladin keeps his face blank.

He isn’t sure what he feels, or what he should feel.

“I don’t know what any of this means…” Renarin inhales sharply, and stares down at the ground. “Long before we met— long before any of this began to become clear… there was a voice in my head. At first I thought he was only my own thoughts, but before long it became clear that this— this was more.”

Silence comes over him, lips shaking with unsaid words.

“Kaladin, please. Just run. This is wrong. All of this is so wrong.”

“I was so desperate,” Renarin trembles as he speaks, his words barely louder than the wind. “I was so desperate, with nowhere to turn, and that doesn’t excuse it but I need to know how I got here. He whispered into my mind, and promised me greatness, promised me respect…”

He looks to Kaladin once more. “You heard about how Elhokar’s Plate was broken. It left him terrified and weak, destroyed his relationship with my father.”

“Please, just run.”

Kaladin shuts his eyes. He doesn’t know what to think, doesn’t know what he’s hearing. “I heard.”

“That was me. He told me, and… I drained the spheres. I nearly sent my own cousin to his death.”

“Why?” He keeps his eyes closed, as Syl still insists that he run. She tells him that this is wrong, all so wrong.

He feels it too now.

“Because he told me to.” The wind chills. “Because he promised that I could have my own Shards if I did. My only chance at them, at the battlefield. My only chance to be anything more than some scorned and forgotten lord of an obscure city.”

Kaladin tastes iron and bile. “You tried to kill the king for glory.”

“Yes.”

Syl pleads still to run, to leave this, and he almost does. 

No, Kaladin has to stay. He needs to know. “What are you? Who do you serve?” He forces his eyes open, looking to Renarin. How could he look so small and innocent still?

“You serve Honor.” Renarin breathes deeply. “I… I serve Odium.”

Kaladin stands, fists clenched and jaw raised. “How dare you? How could you stand among us— how could you betray everything your father stands for? How could you come to me, to Bridge Four, when you’re just like the men Bridge Four stands against?”

“Because I’m weak,” he chokes out, “and afraid.”

“So everything I thought I knew of you was a lie.”

“Not everything. I swear, not everything…”

“Just that you were better. That you were different.” Kaladin turns away, facing into the bitter wind. “I thought you were a good man, Renarin.”

“Now what?”

“Now?” Kaladin’s heavy breaths linger. Numbness hangs over him, still so heavy with disbelief. “You can tell your father what you told me. You… you betrayed us all.”

“Yes.”

Kaladin turns. Renarin sits there still, arms over his head.

“We trusted you,” he says, breathing in the cold air. “If it was glory you wanted all along, there are better ways to win it, and no need to let us all believe you’re a kind and decent person. I thought you were honorable, Renarin. You’re just like all the others. You don’t care who you hurt, so long as  _ you  _ can have glory and power.”

“I let him get to me. I’m not proud of who he made me, Kaladin, but I swear…” Renarin looks up, daring to have tears in his eyes. “I want to be better. I want to be who you thought of me.”

“No.” Kaladin turns again, and walks away. “No second chances.”

**_the young will fight all the powers above til the world knows his name_ **

Renarin shuts his eyes in the darkness.

“All right,” he calls, his voice almost too strong in the emptiness of night. “It’s just like you said. You were always right. I’m sorry. Take me back.  _ Please _ .”

_ Oh, Renarin. You’ll always be mine. Who cares what Honor’s children think of you? They can’t see you the way I do. All they will ever do is hurt you. They never cared.  _

_ You were never meant to languish in obscurity. You were never meant to suffer and wait and let them steal all that which should have been yours. _

_ You were meant to be my Champion. _

**_and how could there be such a sinister plan that could hide such a lamb, such a caring young man_ **

“Renarin, I know you’re here.”

The Weeping soaks Adolin, running down his cracked armor and dripping blood. As he searches, he doesn’t think of the crumpled bodies he steps through and on.

“Adolin,” calls his father. Dalinar had returned to the battlefield. Long after their remaining men had gone home, Adolin had stayed.

“He is here,” says Adolin, and keeps walking. “I don’t care what Kaladin says. I know my brother.”

“How long have you been doing this?” His voice is quiet. Gentle, emotionless. “He won’t come back. You know he won’t.”

“Yes.” Adolin nearly snarls the world. “He  _ will.  _ Renarin!” He turns around, desperate for the slightest glimpse of a silhouette. “Renarin, you can come home.”

“But will he?” Dalinar shuts his eyes. “I don’t know what to believe, son. I don’t think any of us do. Renarin… none of us knew him as well as we should have, did we?”

“We know him.” The smell of blood is thick in the wet and cloying air. The misty horizon  _ could  _ have been obscuring Renarin in its emptiness. “One mistake doesn’t mean he’s stopped being my brother. Your son.”

“If you think any of this means he’s no longer my son, then I’m the one you don’t know.” Dalinar’s face softens. “If Renarin is going to come back, he’s going to do it in his own time. He knows he’s welcome. Standing around here clinging on to this hope, son… you aren’t doing anyone good standing around in the rain among corpses praying for someone who just isn’t coming. Not today.”

“You talk as if you think he’s never going to.”

Dalinar pauses.

“He is! We haven’t lost Renarin forever, father, if I have to drag him back to Urithiru by the ear.” Adolin shuts his eyes, a heavy sickness rising through his chest and throat. “We can’t have lost him.”

“Wisdom tells me we must accept that perhaps we have.” His voice is strained, his fists clenched. “But I am Renarin’s father, and I will not. My son is not lost, Adolin. I’m not suggesting we abandon him. All I am saying is that he will not come home today, but you must. You still have to rest.”

Suddenly he’s sick. Adolin falls to his knees, and lands hard. His father’s right. He always is. “This is our fault.”

“No. It is mine. I am his father, and this is on my head. I should have seen how he felt.”

“So should I. He’s my little brother, and I should have been able to take care of him.”

“Every moment, I look back, and I see what I have done wrong.” He kneels at his son’s side, an arm tight around his shoulders. “Things he said and did that I ignored completely. I didn’t see how such a bright young man could possibly be struggling. You two were so close— I prided myself Renarin had escaped my wounds, my failings, and was completely blind that he had wounds of his own.”

“I still don’t see how this could be him.” Adolin presses tighter against his father. Behind his eyes, every moment, Adolin had his brother smiling and laughing, bouncing in excitement. He saw the days when they’d been carefree children running around the halls of the palace with wooden swords, the grin of his baby brother in victory. The way they’d hug after Adolin won a duel, the way Renarin quirked his eyebrow when mocking him.

The Renarin he knew was one full of joy.

When had that changed?

“Anger,” says Dalinar. He pauses, squeezing Adolin’s shoulder tighter. “I should have seen it. I always feared Renarin and I were too alike. Anger directed at the ones you love… it’s all too easy to mistake for hatred. Once you’ve found that in yourself, it takes root, and all your anger turns toward fueling that hatred. Odium, this force of pure hatred, found Renarin when you and I were looking straight through him. We left him alone with only his anger.”

“I thought he would tell me anything.” Adolin shuts his eyes as he wipes off his face. “There’s not much I didn’t tell him.”

“And I thought he would tell me anything too. But why would he tell us he’s afraid he hates us? Stormfather, if I had only given him Shardplate before. He deserved that Plate.”

“There I was, constantly dueling, always rubbing it in his face. I could fight, and he couldn’t.”

“We can’t change the past, son. Much as I’d like to.” Dalinar looks up, to the horizon. Rainwater runs down his face, slicking his hair back “It’s time to go, Adolin.”

“I can’t.” He looks to his father. “I’m too sick with worry.”

Dalinar stands slowly, his hand out for Adolin. “Come anyway,” he says, “so I am sick with worry for only one son.”

**_let your bitterness consume, let the salt rub in your wounds, you have saved up all your spite, stoked the flame that keeps the fight_ **

Odium’s Champion stands on a hill, and waits. He had travelled the world, leaving destruction in his wake and blood in his footsteps. Now he stands, proud and triumphant.

Renarin Kholin was long gone. The boy who was allowed nothing, had accomplished nothing, had  _ been  _ nothing— he was dead now. In his place stood the Champion, a man more fearsome more than the Blackthorn, whose deeds would never be forgotten. A one-man army.

He stands on a hill, and waits to be told where to go now. What to do.

Sometimes he remembers words he had once spoken to another Champion. Were they anything more than slaves?

Odium would give him a purpose again. Hatred gave his life meaning. He serves the only one who has ever believed in him. Thoughts like that are beneath him now.

This is all he had ever wanted. This is his dream.

Is this really what he wants?

Odium’s Champion stands on a hill, and waits for orders. It doesn’t matter. He has no choice anymore.

**_disarm me with a smile_ **

“You still come.”

“Of course I do.” Adolin smiles. “You’re my brother.

Renarin holds back. He had stayed, this time. He couldn’t have told you how many he had slaughtered that day. He once would have fought at the side of those men. Now they pile at his feet, leaving his armor streaked and dripping, and he doesn’t feel a damn thing.

He looks to Adolin, across the battlefield from him.

“I’m not coming home,” Renarin forces out. “I won’t.”

“I came to bring you home, little brother, and I will if I have to carry you or drag you by the ear.” Adolin steps forward, and Renarin braces. “Renarin, I’m sorry.”

“You’re what?” He steps back, staring at his brother. This sick pit in his stomach, the heaviness in his chest, this sour taste rising up his throat, it all has to be  _ hate _ . He knows it’s hate. “I’m not coming home. This is where I belong. This is what I am.”

“You know that’s not true.” Adolin smiles again. There’s a glint of tears in his eyes. “You can always come back. You can always choose to make things right again.”

“Things are right!” He tightens his grip on his sword. “I was nothing. Forgotten, and meaningless, with nothing of my own, nothing but forcing smiles for  _ your _ victories. You expect me to come back to that? For what? So I can erase myself completely?”

“This is what’s erasing you, Renarin.” He steps forward again, his hands extended. The air is too still, the world too quiet by far. “This is you? Brutal, heartless slaughter, destroying everything in your path?”

“It’s all broken. It all deserves to be destroyed.” He focuses on all the anger he can summon, to hide the hollowness in his words. It’s easy. His soul had burned silently for ten years, trapped and put aside like no more than decoration. He’s still burning, fiercer and freer now. Odium set him free. “Who am I, then, if not this?”

“You have so much love in you, Renarin.” Adolin stays a few steps away. “You’re clever, and you’re kind, and you never give up. Love, though— that’s always been what defined you. You’ve always loved so completely, fiercely, joyfully. We never returned that love in the way you deserved. We took it for granted.”

“Love.” Renarin looks down, and rubs his thumb along the hilt of his sword. He’s never felt that, not that he can remember. Of course he hasn’t. “Do you know what I always thought defined me, brother?” He spits the words. “Weakness and solitude. You think you know me so well, but you haven’t known me for years now.”

“No,” says Adolin, “I do know you. Not as well as I should have, I know, but well enough to know that you aren’t  _ this _ .”

“I am this.” He looks up. “I can’t go back, Adolin.”

“You can!” Only a few more steps, and then Adolin clasps Renarin’s free hand in his own. “It’s not too late. It’s never too late. I know there is good in you, brother, more than anyone could ever erase. We will always love you, and we will always welcome you home.”

“I am Odium’s, completely.” He pulls free of Adolin’s grip. “I don’t need you— any of you! Everything I ever wanted, I have now. Power, and freedom, and respect, all of it  _ mine _ . After you denied it to me for so long.”

“Yes, we did.” Adolin steps away. For a long moment, he looks at his brother “I wish I could make up for how we failed you. Every day, every moment, I wish I could change the past and do right by you. But we are still your family, and we still love you, and you are still my kind and brilliant little brother. I know, in the end, you will choose the right thing.”

“No,” says Renarin. He steps away, his knuckles bloodless from how tightly he’s gripping his his sword. “I can’t.”

“You can.”

“No!” He turns. “I’m not that person anymore.”

“Yes, you are.” Adolin takes Renarin’s hand once more. “Come home with me. We can put it all right, make things the way they should have been.”

“No, we can’t!”

Renarin pulls himself free and backs away, snarling, slowly raising his sword. “This is what I chose. This is what I am. Why should I come back? Why? I have everything now. Everything you wouldn’t give me.”

“This isn’t what you want. You can’t tell me this is what you want.”

“Respect.” Renarin’s breath is ragged. “I never had any value to you. Was I supposed to be content with waiting behind and supporting you forever?”

“I’m sorry.” Adolin keeps walking towards his brother. “We took you for granted. But it isn’t too late to put things right. This isn’t the only way to get respect, brother. I promise you.”

“Why should that mean anything?” He’s shouting now.

Adolin holds his hands out. “Because I love you. We all do. I know it must not feel that way, but I promise you that can change. All you have now is anger and hatred. I know that’s not you. You know it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.” Renarin clenches his jaw. In his armor, he’s trembling. “There’s nothing else left.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“It was what I needed to be.” He lifts his chin high. “Who I was could never be anything. He’s gone now, and I am here instead. No longer Renarin Kholin, but only Odium’s Champion. I won’t come back. I don’t  _ want to. _ ”

“I’m not leaving without you, Renarin.”

He steps forward, again, and Renarin closes the distance between them. “Can’t you see how much I hate you? All of you. Our father, Stormblessed— every single one of you standing against me.” The hate is strangling him. When Renarin speaks again, it’s softer. “You’re selfish, Adolin. Nothing more than a child who still hasn’t realized he isn’t the most important thing on the planet.”

“You made me more than that.” He breathes slowly, struggling to hold in tears. “I am selfish and childish, I know that. But you are the most important thing to me, and you always have been. Please come home, Renarin.”

Renarin stands, silent and stony. He keeps the rage close to his heart. Hate is all he has now. It gives him strength. He can’t afford to let that go.

“I need you.”

“No.” Renarin chokes out the word. There are tears caught in his eyelashes. This is weakness he left behind, long ago.

He looks down, slowly reaching his hand for Adolin’s shoulder. Renarin breathes deeply, the silence aching deep within him.

There is no other choice. His hand is going numb on his sword hilt.

“Leave now.” He raises his head, and looks at Adolin. “Just leave.”

“I will never leave you, Renarin.”

It feels like nothing to shove the sword through his ribcage. Adolin collapses. The hand on his shoulder forces him into Renarin’s arm.

Renarin lets him fall, and tosses his body aside like all the others left on this battlefield.

He regrets nothing. These things he feels gripping his chest must be satisfaction and pride. He’d always hated Adolin, after all.

As he walks away, Renarin can feel Odium burn stronger in him.

**_i curse the day for the wrongs i did_ **

“I never hated you!”

“What?”

“I tried to. Oh, Stormfather, I tried. I do resent you. Perfect Kaladin, Honor’s chosen. But I never hated you. I could never hate you.”

Kaladin had never been able to think of the figure standing across from him, the last one standing on the battlefield, as anything other than the Champion.

Now all he can see is Renarin.

“I love you,” Renarin says, standing in blood. It covers his armor. Odium’s Champion, a one-man army. He looks small. “From the moment I knew who you were, I loved you, Kaladin. Your love and your courage, your conviction and your strength.” He gives a noise that might have been laughter. “Your honor. I still love you. After all I’ve done, after giving myself over to Odium, I still love you.”

“You’re here to kill me,” Kaladin says. The wind is listless, too slow when his heart beats so hard. “The way you killed your brother.”

“No.”

Renarin drops his sword. It seems to make no noise as it hits the ground.

“ _ He  _ told me I hated you, that I hated Adolin, I hated my father, that I had nothing but hate. I let him use me. I let myself think he was right, because  _ he  _ told me I was special, that I was important and could be as great as you. He said my hate for you was why he chose me. He lied. About everything, he lied.”

“It’s too late to come home, Renarin.” The sting in his eyes is stronger than the sting in his words. “You know I’m here to kill you.”

“Yes.” Renarin falls to his knees. “Come on, then. Tell my father I realized the truth in the end. I broke his heart, and I stole his sons from him, but I did realize the truth. Make sure he knows this wasn’t his fault, Kaladin. It was all on my weakness.”

Kaladin steps forward. It flashes through his head that this could be a trap. 

Instantly he feels sick at the thought.

“If you don’t hate me,” he says quietly, “why did Odium come to you?”

Renarin breathes deeply, tugging at the straps of his armor until the breastplate comes undone. It falls to the ground before him, and Renarin lifts his head. “Myself. It was always myself I hated so much.”

“I understand,” he says. He feels Syl at the edges of his mind, pulling him in every direction, not knowing what she wants. She hated Odium, had always smelled it on Renarin and hated him.

This was no fight, though, but a mere execution. Not protection, but justice. Renarin kneels in the ground, the wind idly playing with loose strands of his hair.

He’s trembling.

“I was trying to help you with that.” Kaladin doesn’t know who he’s trying to reassure more. He kneels, reaching out a hand to brush Renarin’s jaw.

“I should have trusted you,” he whispers. “But no, I was too proud. Too jealous of you, and my father, and  _ Adolin _ — ” Renarin chokes back a sob. “Please, Kaladin, end this. Win the war, save Roshar. For the sake of what we once— of what we could have been— please stay with my father. You are the only son he has now. I’ll never be free of Odium while I live. Let me at least die as nobly as I can.”

His eyes are wet, but the tears don’t fall. Kaladin can feel his own running down his face.

He moves to pull off more of Renarin’s armor. The padded shirt underneath is worn, stiff in places with dried blood. Sweat runs down his neck and arms, soaking the edges of the padded shirt and the collar of the undershirt.

Kaladin bares Renarin’s hands, and holds them as if too hard a touch will break them.

“Don’t taunt me,” Renarin breathes. “Please, Kaladin.”

“Get the rest of that armor off,” Kaladin orders. He pulls Renarin to his feet. “Hand me your belt. I won’t kill you like this. If there’s a trial, and they rule to execute you… I’ll accept that, I think. But I won’t be your executioner.”

“No.” Renarin steps away. “Kaladin, you have to kill me. I can’t promise Odium won’t take me again.”

“ _ Ren. _ ” He holds back. “This ends here. You’re still Bridge Four. Still one of my men.”

“No. I betrayed you, Kaladin, and I—”

He grabs Renarin’s hands once more. “No,” Kaladin says, soaking in Renarin’s face. No scars, but he’s older than he should be, exhausted, the softness of his baby cheeks gone. It hardly looks like Renarin. Then he slowly parts his lips, breathes and shuts his eyes, and suddenly he can see a familiar softness. “No,” Kaladin repeats, gentler this time. “No, Ren, I betrayed you.”

“No!” He pulls back sharply, eyes opened wide. “Kal, you had every right to reject me.”

“I had a responsibility to you.” Kaladin wipes off his face. “Take off your armor. You’ve lost my trust, Renarin, if you want a punishment. But you’ll have to do a lot more than that before I stop caring about you.”

“I killed Adolin.” He looks away, and then slowly begins to obey. As he drops pieces of the armor away into the mud, he looks a little smaller, a little more like Renarin. “That wasn’t Odium’s orders, Kal, that was all me.”

“I never said I forgave you.”

Renarin slowly pulls off the padded undershirt, then reaches to let his hair down from its topknot. 

He looks so terribly small and fragile in only a thin silk shirt, threadbare and stained and soaked. His hair hangs in his face, and for just a moment Kaladin sees the laughing boy he’d once sat beside at Bridge Four’s fireside.

Then he sees the bloodstains that have soaked him through from armor to shirt, and wonders. Any of them could be Adolin’s blood. Dabbid’s. Teft’s. 

Probably not.

“I can’t,” Kaladin says, taking the belt Renarin wordlessly hands him. He can’t leave the thought unfinished. “Much as I’d love to, Renarin. No matter how much I want to welcome you back with open arms, I never will. It should have been different.”

“There’s no need to apologize.” Renarin lets Kaladin bind his wrists. He’s staring at the ground, hiding his tears. “Don’t try to make excuses. I did what I did. None of this is your fault. You could never have stopped it. This is all on my cowardice, my weakness. You couldn’t have saved me, Kaladin.”

“I could have,” he says. Kaladin looks over Renarin. He isn’t sure he’s doing the right thing, but he knows he can’t do anything else. He puts a hand on Renarin’s shoulder, and turns to guide him home. “And you wouldn’t have been the only one saved.”

“I— ” Renarin chokes. “If I’d only trusted you.”

“No,” says Kaladin. “If I’d only trusted you.”

**_what’s a boy supposed to do? the killer in me is the killer in you_ **

Renarin’s throat runs dry. He hears the footsteps.

His father pulls him from the floor and holds him close.

“My son,” Dalinar says, his voice broken with tears. “You came home.”

**_who incited, what ignited, all this hatred?_ **

“How far you have fallen, my young friend.”

Renarin hasn’t so much as left his bed. He sits still, and says nothing.

Hoid crosses his legs and leans back in his chair. He doesn’t mind waiting for his reply. 

Once, he’d met a young boy, with far too much pain for so few years, but a spirit bright and strong enough to bear it. That child had been broken, and is now far beyond recognition.

“Too far for games now,” says Renarin. “I’m sorry, Wit.”

“Fortunately for you, I did not come here to play any games.” He leans back towards the bed. No response comes from Renarin, sitting at its edge and looking at the floor. Hoid knows he’s still listening. Renarin always is. “I came here to apologize.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Renarin speaks too quickly, and swings around to tuck his legs under him and face away from Hoid. “All anyone’s been doing is apologize to me.”

“But because they think you need to hear them, or because they need you to absolve them?” Hoid’s words are half a mutter to himself.

“I don’t deserve forgiveness, and they’ve all been granted their absolution already.” Renarin takes a shaky breath. “Have your absolution too, then, for whatever it is you did.”

“Oh, Renarin.” The chair tilts when he leans back. “You have always been such a terribly clever fool. I haven’t come to be absolved, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“All of it was my fault. Not yours, not my father’s, not Kaladin’s, not… not…”

“Nor your brother’s.” That tragedy, he hadn’t foreseen. “The fault was mine though, I’m afraid. And I am terribly sorry, Renarin. You deserved better, and so did those who love you.”

Renarin sits cross-legged, facing the far wall. His breathing is labored. He says nothing.

“I could sense Rayse’s interest in you. You were such a terribly attractive target for him. So powerful, so conveniently situated, and so abused. I could have helped you. I could have told you not to trust him. Instead, I stood back, and allowed this all to happen.”

“I was selfish and cowardly. Whatever the actions of others, all of this happened because I  _ chose  _ it. No one but me is to blame.”

“A god chose you,” says Hoid, “a desperate young man with no path in life. He took advantage of you, and twisted your thoughts. Some of that was you, certainly. You’re no saint. Yet, had Rayse never influenced you... I have complete certainty that if I had taken the slightest action to help, you would have been stronger than him from the very start. As it stands, you are  _ still  _ stronger than him.”

“Stop lying to comfort me.” His voice is strangled. “I thought you were better than this, Wit. I never saw you trying to hold back the truth to protect anyone.”

“As I said,” he continues, keeping his tone light, “a great deal of that was still Renarin Kholin. The anger, the bloodthirsty, ruthless nature— all parts of you long before Rayse chose to enter your mind. My point and my apology is that you would have had a fighting chance against him, with only a few words from me. And that... is precisely the reason I could not protect you.”

Still silent, Renarin turned around.

“There have been others strong enough to fight off the influence of a god, a very few. You, I hoped, were among that number, and you have proved me right.”

“Not strong enough,” says Renarin, too softly to be snarling, “not to kill my own brother.”

“Yet strong enough to turn around and come home.” Hoid stands. There has been time enough for sentiment. “I do wish things had been different, Renarin. Things far more important than you or I mean they could not have been.”

“Yes.” Renarin turns his head away, his eyes downcast. “They could have been.”

Hoid gives a thoughtful hum, and turns to the door. “You have made mistakes far greater than most, but you are still, on the whole, a good person. Unfortunately I am not. So here we are now, all of us our own little tragedies weaving together into a far larger one. You, me, your brother, even Rayse himself.”

There was no room in Hoid’s work for compassion or guilt. He didn’t apologize. He did what he had to do, and then he moved on. Another force of the Cosmere, inexorable and ineffable.

Here and now, he can be nothing but a man. Despite everything, he still is, the same as Renarin is still a boy.

“I only hope,” he says as he opens the door, turning back to look at Renarin once more, “that they’re worth it.”

**_you know, he’s always been a fighter_ **

“They voted,” says Jasnah.

Renarin says nothing. He hasn’t even bothered to sit, still curled on his side with his back to Jasnah. She sits on the side of the bed, speaking quietly.

The fate they had decided for him wouldn’t be execution, despite how Renarin had  _ asked  _ for it. It was the best way, the only way. He would never be free of Odium, and so they would never be safe from him. He had to die. Otherwise, he couldn’t be sure nobody else would fall to his mistakes.

What if he was weak enough to turn to Odium in desperate selfishness once more? If he made the same mistake as last time, if he couldn’t keep the anger in this time, then he didn’t know what could happen. How much would he destroy this time?

“They’ve found a place in Urithiru where they think they can keep you prisoner, no matter what happens. For the rest of your life.”

It wouldn’t hold him if Renarin gave in like he had before and returned to Odium. Nothing would.

“We have a few days left to… say our goodbyes, if we wish. Then, they’ll lock you away to rot alone in that dungeon.”

He probably deserved the loneliness and suffering. Fear, though, clutches Renarin’s heart tight. If he wavers for a moment, the pain could drag him back to Odium. The Champion would slaughter Urithiru, and though it wouldn’t be a battle he could win or survive, the price would be so high. The walls of Urithiru would be stained with blood, and in months to come they would be empty of life.

“They believe they’re showing you a mercy. That, or they simply can’t stand to kill you after all those already lost.”

“Those I killed,” Renarin says softly. His mouth his dry. “Adolin. I killed Adolin.”

“Quite right,” she murmurs. After a moment’s pause, she turns and lays her hand on Renarin’s shoulder. “I voted to execute. Morally and practically, I think leaving Odium’s Champion alive is the wrong choice.”

He pulls away from her touch.

“I know you, cousin, well enough to say you  _ would  _ rather die than be imprisoned. It felt right to come and tell you this. It may be some comfort, at least. You will not meet your fate in that dungeon, Renarin.”

He turns. She’s looking away, off into the distance.

“You’ll meet it at the end of my Shardblade,” she says, voice harsh. Jasnah stands, breathes deeply, and smooths her gown. “We cannot risk keeping you alive, and I refuse to allow you to suffer through being locked away.”

“Jasnah,” he calls when she’s nearly left the room. In the doorway, Jasnah turns.

Renarin takes a moment to gather his thoughts. His heart pounds, and something in him wants to laugh at how very far he’s fallen. To think his life before had hurt. “Thank you.”

She nods, and then she leaves him, alone in a locked room.

**_your heart is kind, mine’s painted black_ **

The Blade is drawn, and Renarin faces his death standing tall. He shuts his eyes, his brother’s name on his lips.

“Brightness!” Loud footsteps, the sounds of a struggle— Renarin opens his eyes. Kaladin has Jasnah by the throat. Kaladin.

“No,” he whispers, stepping away, gripping the frame of the bed.

“And what exactly is it you presume to do now?” Jasnah asks, voice cool. She’s dismissed her Blade, and stands tall as Kaladin snarls in her face.

“What are you doing?” He releases her throat and backs away, still poised like a cornered whitespine.

“We have no idea how much influence Odium still holds over Renarin. You know better than any other what a god’s Champion is capable of. Can you really promise me that if it came to that, we would have any way of holding him?”

“That doesn’t make killing him in cold blood the right thing to do. You speak so often of standing by what was voted, no matter what, and then you turn around and do this?”

“Renarin  _ wants  _ this.” Jasnah steps towards Kaladin, chin held high, skirts sweeping behind her. “This is what’s best for all of us, and for him. You think you showed him mercy? It is no mercy to lock him away, alone and powerless.”

“That’s not what’s going to happen.” He stares into her eyes, fists clenched. “I came here to leave with him. I have failed so many, and I will not stand back. After all the people I couldn’t save, I will save Renarin.”

“And all of us? Will you save us  _ from him _ ?”

“I’ll be the only one in danger.” Kaladin turns. He looks to Renarin as he speaks, desperation in his eyes. “We leave Urithiru together. From there, I don’t know where we’ll go, but I will never let you hurt anyone.”

“Bold words, captain. Can you keep that promise?

Renarin keeps his eyes downcast, gripping as tight as he could to the bedframe.

“I can,” he says, emotion rough in his voice. “I won’t lose anyone else.”

“You’re a fool.”

Kaladin turns. “Yes,” he snarls. “I am.”

“You would abandon everything.”

“But I will not abandon Renarin.” He steps towards her. “I want what’s best for him, just as you say you do.”

“You want to comfort your own guilty conscience.”

“More death is not the answer.”

“It’s too late for anything else.” Jasnah shuts her eyes, and turns away. “Sometimes, you cut your losses and walk away.”

“I don’t accept that.”

“If you were to go through with that fool plan, it would end the same way.”

“Yes, but at least I’d have  _ tried. _ ” He takes a deep, labored breath. “I am sworn to protect those who need me. Renarin needs me.”

“You’re selfish.” She turns again, proud chin lifted. “Do you think this is an easy choice for me? Do you really think I won’t mourn?”

“There have been so many lost already, and I refuse to just let Renarin join them without even fighting for him.” He looks to Renarin before he speaks. “Let me try to save him.”

“You’ll abandon everything we fight for to chase a hopeless dream.”

“It’s better than just giving in.”

Jasnah takes a slow breath, and puts her safehand to her chest. “Ask Renarin,” she breathes. “We should let him decide this.”

Renarin steps forward, his heart pounding in his ears.

“Renarin?” asks Kaladin. He steps forward, his hands outstretched. There’s pain written on his face, in the way he holds himself.

Has there ever really been a choice?

“I’ll go,” says Renarin, voice quiet and mouth dry. “I don’t think I can be saved, but… I’ll go.”

Kaladin breathes his relief, and steps forward to take Renarin’s hands.

“I don’t deserve another chance,” he says.

“Yes,” says Kaladin, “you do.”


End file.
